I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist. I've chosen to work in history the way someone might choose to work in still lifes or landscapes.

History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions.

We're having a hard time understanding where jazz is going. What happened to jazz?

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's an active disengagement.

Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means, "God in us."

History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.

People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story".

By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.

I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.

The best don’t stick around when you treat them poorly, only the desperate do.

Most of the time reason for unhappiness is, desiring for the things which are far from our expectations.

Good health and good sense are two of life's greatest blessings.

In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries.

As long as one can suffer, one is living....live and suffer until life is gone.

We are all so sunk in sin, and so wedded to the world, that we would never turn to God and seek salvation, unless He first called us by His grace. Without a divine call, no one can be saved.

It is very important to support what you believe in.

Most of my relatives are police marksmen, apart from my grandad who was a bank robber. He died recently, surrounded by his family.

I'm on the Web a lot. I like to play games online. Sometimes I play Sims.

Everything always gets crazy at the end. You just have to keep going, regardless of how awful it gets. So that's what I do.